---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 06:48:56 -0500 (CDT) From: Glenn Gohr <ggohr01@mail.orion.org> To: HANKS-L@rootsweb.com, GENSMER-L@rootsweb.com, KASTNER-L@rootsweb.com, PYRON-l@rootsweb.com Subject: MAISER Story For your interest, here is the article about the Maiser shutdown that appeared in the ATLANTA CONSTITUTION newspaper on Wednesday, May 14th: E-mail mishap halts genealogy service Researchers, buffs lose a valuable tool by Art Kramer STAFF WRITER A Dunwoody retailer said he unwittingly started a chain of junk e-mail that undermined one of the most popular exchanges of genealogy information on the Intenet. The shutdown is depriving tens of thousands of genealogy buffs of their most effective online research tool, said John Rigdon, national coordinator of The USGenWeb Project, a genealogy clearinghouse on the World Wide Web. The exchange, called Maiser, is a collection of mailing lists for those trading research about their ancestors. Many genealogy buffs subscribe to several lists, keyed to cities, towns, regions or family surnames. It's not unusual for a genealogy hobbyist to sift through several hundred list-sent messages daily, in search of a clue that points to a distant ancestor. Maiser, the largest collection of detailed lists with 40,000 subscribers, was forced off the Net last week after being used as a fake return address to hide the identity of a junk e-mailer. The disaster began when Sam Khuri, general manager of Benchmart Print Supply, sent a $100 money order to the post office box of a company that promised to advertise his service to 50,000 potential customers. "If I knew what they were going to do, I never would have sent the money," said Khuri, whose company recycles toner cartridges for copiers. The contractor, whose identity Khuri said he lost in a computer crash of his own, e-mailed thousands of ads touting Khuri's service last week. The junk e-mail was routed through Indiana University computers, making it appear the ads had come from the same computers that are home to the genealogy lists. The tactic of forging return addresses, making an uninvolved third party appear to be the sender of junk e-mail, is a common one. Such practices prompted several online services, including CompuServe and Prodigy, to get federal courts to help them bar junk e-mailers from their services. Larry Stephens, an Indiana University official who organized the groups as a hobby over the past three years, was forced to shut them down Friday rather than let them appear to be the source of the junk e-mail. Stephens said he couldn't risk furthering the perception that the junk e-mail was somehow connected to the university. "The loss of these mailing lists is devastating," Rigdon said. "We've lost approximately one-third of our backbone for genealogy research. About 20,000 daily users of the Internet have been effectively left with no communication." Stephens may reopen some of the regional lists this week if he can find software that can't be commandeered by junk e- mailers, but with the added security burden, he said it's unlikely he will revive the surname lists. Robert Turner, 52, a postal clerk in Huntsville, Ala., and a descendant of traveling blacksmith David Turner, bemoaned the demise of the surname lists. Turner and his wife, Winona Turner, added 4,000 ancestors to their family tree in the 30 years before they computerized their search, but 20,000 more in just 16 months online. Without the surname lists, said Turner, looking for his ancestors "will be akin to driving down a dark country road with no headlights."